The shock of the accident had thrust him apart from Italy, and also given him a smart blow upon the head that made his senses reel. When he came to himself he was lying on his back in a portion of the wreck, his face upturned to the moonlit sky, and his only sensation one of burning pain in the head. The fog had passed away, so he must have been a long time adrift, but thought and memory were gone. The blow on his head had destroyed all sentient consciousness save the animal one of pain. In this condition he was rescued by a smart sailing-vessel bound for the south of France. The vessel had a most humane captain and crew. They vied with each other in kindly attentions to the handsome stranger they had saved from a watery grave. But it soon became evident that he was suffering so much that he was conscious of nothing but his own pain. There was nothing on his person to indicate who he was, and when interrogated as to his own identity, he answered feebly that his head pained him so he could not remember. There was not a woman on board, but there was a very kindly disposed young physician who had undertaken this sea-voyage for the benefit of his weak lungs. From the young doctor and the kindly crew Francis Murray received the best care. His beautiful, manly face was a passport to their hearts. They felt very sure that he was a person of importance, and did all that they could to arouse his slumbering intellect. But all in vain, for, though after a while he improved and ceased to complain of the pain in his head, his memory remained a complete blank. Life dated for him from the moment he had come to himself like a new-born babe out there on the illimitable sea with the August moon shining in his pallid, wondering face, and only a few frail planks between him and eternity. They could guess with almost certainty from the wreck of the accident that had befallen him, and Doctor Loring talked of a probable pressure on the brain of some small bit of bone, no doubt fractured by a blow. “If we can only get him to France it will be a beautiful operation for one of those clever French surgeons to remove the little bone and restore to him his memory. Why, it will come back like a flash!” cried the doctor enthusiastically, and he took the most wonderful interest in his handsome patient. Captain McVey was quite anxious for Doctor Loring to perform the operation himself, but he declined. “I have not the proper instruments for the surgical operation required--no, nor the steady nerve. We must trust our patient to one of those skilful French fellows!” he replied, and looked forward ardently to the day. But in the necessarily slow progress of a sailing-vessel many weeks must go by before they landed, and in the long, long silence the hearts at home were breaking in the belief that he was dead, while fiendish malice was plotting to lay upon the memory of the supposed-to-be-dead man the burden of a black and bitter crime.